She has hours, what feels like forever or whatever the kids say. And this, on her person, isn’t a status check. At least not one for the boys. She runs through the five W’s in her head for the thirty-seventh time that evening: why, why, why, why, and oh god, why is this happening? If her breath is hitching in the midst of the dingy lighting and the drydown, it’s only because she’d undercalculated exactly how she could’ve shimmied out with the rest of them. But hey, he did ask for a minute anyway.
Gyeoul sucks in a breath for composure. She isn’t ready, but they’re already here. So be it. None of her thoughts are spoken out loud, nestled under her wing as she racks her brain for a necessary pause. In what though, this silence? The subject matter? “What are we talking about again?” she feigns, avoiding his gaze in favor of nothing, clipboard tucked over her stomach under sleeves rolled up at the ends, chin neither dipped nor poised.
SUNGWOO
There's something admirable about how she looks to be the last person to ever come undone. Even now, in between a pause and a thought he has no claim to, it's an outcome that has ceased to exist from the start. But that's expected. Maybe it's just how he wants it too.
He folds his arms. "The stream." His words fall light, casual, as if the topic holds the same weight as a question about the weather. As if a couple nights ago it hadn't been a case of a dangerously slippery slope.
Truth be told, it'd only been a matter of minute details: the delicate cut of a collarbone, the single mole on the neck, familiar in a way that'd brought a profound blur of deja vu before the silk-slip reveal of all else. But god, it sounds contrived even to his own ears.
"If it's any assurance, it's not going anywhere beyond that. With anyone."
GYEOUL
The slip of a smile at that is cruel, the smile not even being subtle even moreso. It’s quick to drop, however, tongue in cheek when she turns away and pretends to pick something off her sweater, eyes lingering in the direction towards the exit, her feet one step ahead of them. “as long as you’re not assuming that makes you a hero, Sungwoo.” The clipboard is tucked at her right hip, fingers still gripped on the ledge, lax. “it pays the bills.” She raises it, a flash of inventory in midair, her back still turned towards him. “I’m here for fun.” Some kind of sport, standing there and doing the mental gymnastics of just how capable these guys are to make it past semis, regionals just to have a taste knowing what it’s like to be close to nationals. That isn’t even the hard part of it all. She just wishes that were the point.
Oh well, huh? Not like she can ask him to forget. Reverse psychology would just make it weirder than it has to be, what with saying it’s fine if he does remember. It isn’t. But it also isn’t not.
She sniffles, arm dropping to her side again as she turns her head to face him, eyes trained on the air around him. It’s earnest. He could overdo it if he wanted to, as with just about everything else he does, but this time he doesn’t. Dare you actually think about that at home later tonight. She likes to separate work from... Well, whatever this is. “Too much free time on your hands for you to snoop around the outskirts of the web like that, hm?” She redirects her gaze at the net, this a mere glance before she turns around in full to hand him the keys to the gym. Gyeoul resumes her way out, alone.
“Work on your form.”
Sungwoo knowing about anything that goes on past these double doors in her life would only actually be mortifying if he still had a curfew.
SUNGWOO
Fickle, he thinks, though it's more observational in intent than it is straight up judgement. The offhand comment, however, prompts a raised brow. Putting on a show has its merits, no doubt, but there's little about this that's performative.
Surely she of all people would know.
"I get it." maybe not in the way that's remotely empathetic, but there's an inkling that anything involving pathos would be the last thing she cares for. It goes both ways, but that's not news to the either of them, is it now?
Between everything spoken, he fills in the spaces with what he's meant to see: where her eyes deliberately miss the mark, while his own stay on target. The lack of directness says enough; enough so that he doesn't press on.
Without much consideration: "Maybe," Sungwoo offers up easily, an opportunity for another jab from hers truly, to call the shots, or none of the above. "Not on purpose, though."
Tthe keys are caught with an open palm. For a moment, he does nothing, gaze trailing after her form, lanyard twisting over his fingers until it's just the wide space of gym, the net, and residual lingering.
Half under his breath, half not, and wholly meant for no one: "Can't say anything bad about yours."
